Expanding Accountability through Rating and Ranking of Colleges: A Bad Idea
In Silly Season at the U.S. Department of Education, Dr. Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University, explores serious concerns about President Obama’s recent proposal that the federal government bring the kind of accountability that has been imposed on K-12 public education to colleges and universities. The President and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have proposed that the Department of Education rate and rank colleges and universities and make federal aid and loans more available to students at those institutions that make themselves accountable to federal standards.
In August, Tamar Lewin, writing for the N.Y. Times summarized the President’s plan: “to rate colleges before the 2015 school year based on measures like tuition, graduation rates, debt and earnings of graduates, and the percentage of lower-income students who attend… Mr. Obama hopes that starting in 2018, the ratings would be tied to financial aid, so that students at highly rated colleges might get larger federal grants and more affordable loans. But that would require new legislation.”
While it is a good idea to encourage universities to serve more low-income students, all of the issues in the President’s plan are far more complicated than they appear. Dr. McGuire
